arstechnica.com
I told my spouse it reached negative 28 dollars a barrel and got the expected question. What does that actually mean?
It means that dealers who had bought oil on forward contracts that fell due yesterday who hadn't been able to find final buyers had themselves to take delivery, which meant they were paying people with spare storage capacity to take delivery for them.
Or there's the well-thought-out strategy from the dumbass running Georgia; open up the hair salons and fitness clubs ASAP.Exit strategies from a lockdown are considerably more granular than throwing a simple lockdown on/off switch.
As an example, The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has recently published a paper, Suppression Exit Strategies: Options for Lifting Lockdown Measures in the UK, which has been generally well received.
I've not read it in any detail, but it seems to provide a helpful overview of the different possible strategies, how they'd work, and what the pros and cons are.
However it's done, various economies are going to have reopen gradually, one sector at a time, with manufacturing and building restarting before retail, and retail before tourism, bars and restaurants, and so much will depend on access to reliable testing.
Yeah, a lot of people who could work from home, especially in vulnerable populations, will probably keep on doing so until there is a vaccine. Since my wfa agreement says m to f now I plan on at least working from home some days, if not most of them.
In the case of Georgia, a man who became governor by overseeing his own election as Secretary of State, didn't know you can be infectious while asymptomatic, and thinks hairdressers and barbers can maintain social distancing while doing their jobs.
Spell was arrested basically as soon as he got out of the car, and driven immediately to jail.
I explained this in another post, but will do so again. The price here is for a "futures contract". That's a contract to deliver a specified amount of oil on a specific date. Refineries purchase such contracts in order to guarantee a supply of oil for their normal operation. The sellers are the various small oil producers who want a known market for their product. The terms of the contract *require* delivery, or you face big penalties.
This lady is unquestionably batshit insane, but when it comes to protesting, you can learn a lot from crazy people. She made a highly effective protest sign. People put lots of work into making signs like that, but most of them are never read, let alone photographed and shared. I haven't seen any other protest signs plastered all over the internet like this one. It might be spreading because of her bad spelling, but her message is still clear. IDK whether she intended it to happen like this or not, or if she's happy with the attention, but if you are ever making protest signs, maybe take some notes here.
Guess who wants to choose option B, the Texas lieutenant governor who said grandparents would want to die for the economy.
They remind me of the people who came out in 2010 to demonstrate against what the GOP labeled "Obamacare." These people are mostly intelligent but can be swayed by aggressive marketing. The Democrats are lousy at marketing; they continually make the mistake of thinking that the facts will speak for themselves, leaving the truth wide open to being papered over by slick lies that appeal to their gut instincts, bypassing all the so-called human reasoning that is supposed to be our distinguishing feature. Unfortunately, the Republicans and Trump are busy doing their best to equate all the inconvenient COVID pandemic countermeasures with Democratic "elite" overreach.
I'm somewhat inclined to think that cities with sensible leadership were already inclined to do better and being responsible about social distancing just comes with it. They enjoyed a surge after because the natural competition from other less-proactive cities was stalled by their own mismanagement.
Funny you should mention it - I got an email from the salon I went to when we still lived in Atl and I managed to catch my hair on fire. The owner doesn't want to open, and if any of her employees wish to risk it, they will require osha/cdc training because she doesn't want them getting sick, or her customers getting sick. Personally, I suspect that in the states pushing to open, that a lot of smaller places will just say feck off and stay closed. Living in one of those states, I -really- hope this.
Yeah, it's hard to come up with good slogans and ideas for direct action. The most effective protester I ever knew was a guy named Ernest, he was an extremist atheist. So extreme, some of his actions got international headlines. My favorite Ernest protest was when the city of Harrisburg's mayor declared a city wide fast to solve our financial problems. Obviously, this is a violation of the spirit of separation of church and state, so we protested. One of us had a box of granola bars in their car, so we started handing them out during the fast, in front of city hall, because it was funny, and it made people smile. Then we got more to hand out from a corner bodega. It didn't stop the fast or get an apology or anything, but it got people talking.
It will be interesting to see the lawsuits when businesses start opening up. A super litigious person gets corona, blames it on a cashier for not wiping down the cash register well enough between customers, then sues them for it. That's gonna be a mess.
Been to plenty of protests since 2016. Probably stood in the exact same spot where she's standing. I have lots of practice making signs. We organize parties around making them.
